A similar system is mentioned in “Starman Jones” (Robert A. Heinlein, 1953). He also mentioned a tunnel under S.F.Bay in “Citizen of the Galaxy” (1957). FYI - RAH has conceptual credit for the waldo (remote manipulator) and the waterbed.

17 000 miles of HSR track for $ 600 Billion, thats $ 35 million per mile, the same as the Korean HSR Costs. Its also close to the Taiwanese $ 37 Million per km cost, and remember the majority of The Taiwan system runs elevated. A very reasonable estimate. Your $ 2 Trillion number can be used as the final final reviewed cost estimate, you know, should shit get completely out of hand.

The most expensive costs per KM to date, on any HSR system, anywhere in the world, is the $ 74 million per km reached in the UK. The USA is a big place and suggesting that the costs of building a HSR system here runs between $ 50 million and $ 80 million are a bit steep. Seeing as no new system has been built here in the good ol’ USA and there’s a world full of countries that have said systems, those costs could be greatly reduced.

BTW, France build/t their lines for between $ 4 million - $ 10 million per Km, Spain $ 10 Million per Km, Belgium & Germany $ 15 Million per Km. The PDF below has some figures…

http://www.jrtr.net/jrtr40/pdf/f22_ard.pdf

Your Figures are a bit much, I’d say. Again they’re all estimates, In construction you don’t know how much it costs until its built.

The Big Dig was a huge cock up from the start. Good Idea, bad planning, design, implementation, management , god you name it, if it was wrong it had to do with the big dig. It has, for the most part succeeded in its goal.

The $ 2 Billion cost you mention is a 1982 Estimate, thats $ 6 Billion in 2006 money. The eventual 2007 Cost came to $ 14.6 Billion, thats $ 8 Billion in 1982 money.(There is $ 7 Billion in interest of course)

Considering the Project scope and the problems that were the order of the day, they did a fair job of not sending the costs any higher. The money will be recouped by 2038 no biggie.

What a project like the Big Dig does is teach lessons that can be put to good use in the future. Whether there will be someone actually taking heed is a different story all together.

[what I am saying is that it is not 1898, and Pittsburgh has had its h back since 1911]

Now, if you read the writings of Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg, who has done a great deal of research on rail and other mega-infrastructure projects, you will discover what many of us know already — cost overruns. Boston Big Dig? From $2 billion before they started, to $22billion including interest, when they completed the job.

California’s high-speed train, now budgeted at $45 billion, was only $30 billion a few years ago. Figure the costs to at least double by the time they have completed the 800 miles, fifteen years from now, $90 billion and more.

I suggest that the proposed national HSR network will pencil out at to at least $1 and perhaps as much as $2 TRILLION dollars. If you find that ridiculous, you haven’t done your homework.

So $600 billion is pretty cheap in comparison. It is less than the amount of money Congress gave away to the banks. It is less than what we have spent in Iraq.